MissBehaving: Tutorial Challenge

I love tutorials. I’m addicted, it’s true. If I don’t know how to accomplish, I google. (Is google a verb?) I love reading tutorials and learning something new. You get the picture. However, sitting down to actually DO one is a different story. Am I right or am I right? I have hundreds if not thousands of tutorials booked-marked and saved into my favourites but alas I seem to keep adding onto the list instead of doing them.

Then last Tuesday night’s chat, the “chatters” were a-chatting and we came up with a fabulous idea. (I’m telling you, if you are not going to Tuesday night’s chat … you are missing out on a HUGE amount of fun). The “chatters” suggested, why don’t we hold a challenge to motivate us into actually doing a tutorial from start to finish? Studio Gypsy, you know … the designer who is queen of glitter and splats who just also happens to have gorgeously textured papers in her stash kits (YUM!). Lisa has generously offered to sponsor our very first (drumroll please) Tutorial Challenge!

Complete the Tutorial challenge and upload it into the Tutorial Challenge gallery and two lucky people will have the chance to win a $5.00 Gift Certificate from Studio Gypsy. One winner will be selected by Lisa, Queen of Glitter and Splatters and one will be chosen randomly.

How great is that? Not only do you learn something new, you win a prize … it’s a WIN – WIN.

For the tutorial challenge, you are not required to use Studio Gypsy’s products for your layout but it might be an advantage in your favor.

This week’s challenge is to create a reflection. Not just any reflection but one that gradually fades oh so gently into sweet nothingness. Ok, so maybe I waxed a bit too poetic.

I’m going to start on a plain black background to show you the basics of reflection then build on the idea’s premise.

Flip the bird. Umm … I mean, we’re going to rotate the pelican to “mirror” the image. Be sure to have the pelican – copy layer highlighted. Hit “Ctrl + T” to bring up the transforming options. Then Right-Click inside the transforming box.

Choose “Flip Vertical”.

Drag the pelican – copy layer and line up the edges of the feet. I’ve zoomed in to be as accurate as possible.

Drag the pelican – copy layer below the original.

Now for the gradual fade. Go to your tool box and choose the Gradient Tool.

Note your Gradient Tool box options.

Click inside the gradient bar to make sure your settings are set to from “Foreground to Background” with your Foreground color being “black” and your Background color being “white”.

Click on the Quick Mask in your Tool Box.

Starting at the feet, click to create a starting point and without letting go of your mouse, drag the gradient line down to the head.

Are you seeing red? Don’t panic! This is what we want.

Go back to your Tool box and click on the Quick Mask button again.

Now the red is gone and the bottom portion of your gradient should be selected.

Hit delete. I sometimes hit twice to be more dramatic (*gasp* dramatic, who me?) although once is perfectly acceptable.

Well obviously, you’re not only going to have one element on your layout. Unless you’re really into minimalism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …. LOL

Let’s take a layout with multiple elements and an extracted model.

I’m going to “Group” my Original elements and model. Higlight all of your layers and drag them down to the Create a Group button.

Duplicate the Group and drag this group below the original. Here is what my layer palette looks like now. You’ll notice I put the boat in a separate group because I’ve already done that reflection.

Hit “Ctrl + T” to transform the group and flip the Group – Original elements copy vertically. Move the group to line the edges up as best you can.

Go to your tool box and choose the Gradient Tool.

Use the same settings as above.

Click on the Quick Mask in your Tool Box.

Pick a point slightly above your original elelments. Click to create a starting point and without letting go of your mouse, drag the gradient line down to the bottom of your layout.

Go back to your Tool box and click on the Quick Mask button again.

We have the bottom portion selected.

Here is where we are going to divert from the original formula. If you hit delete now, you’ll get an error message. I speak from experience. Plus, we don’t want to delete this selection. We are going to “Invert” our selection by hitting “Ctrl + Shift + I”. Now are upper portion of the layout is selected.

Now … create a New Layer Mask (circled in red).

This is what the layer palette looks like now.

Done! Well, except for lowering the Opacity and applying the Gausian Blur and the Motion Blur.

RAWK ON, with your bad self! This is fabulous. Get to learn reflections, and get to have a chance to win yummy goodies. Yay!!!

Thought of another skill I’m dying to learn. Not sure if its a ‘tut thang’ or not but I’ve tried on my own and its just ridonkulus pitiful! lol I’d like to make ‘nooks’ to tuck people into. You know, like little ‘holes’ go back deep into the background (a cave that is a shape, basically). Geez…i can’t even expain what I want, let alone figure it out! Maya has something similar that’s just gorgeous in her store, but I want to be able to make my own and in a specific ‘shape’ using my own ephemera backgrounds. Soo, if you ever get stuck for an idea …but i’m sure you’ve got notebooks full of them…and dont’ know what to tut about…

BTW, I have some exciting news! Well, exciting for me. Might make you smile a little. lol I’ll post it in the ‘hair’ tuts, since that’s sorta where it belongs.

ohhhhhhh, I just love this and ehem, yeah, it goes into my folder……for another day but I love love it all the same. Just don’t seem to find that much time right now to play. But what a fantastic tut and I will give it a try.
Hugs and thanks a million.

Wow…now THAT was easy to follow. AND you answered a question I’ve been trying to figure out for at least a few weeks and haven’t been able to…how to use the darn gradient tool to gradient erase. Whoohoo. So now i have a lovely lady with a lovelier reflection…very ethereal and dreamy. I’m trying to morph it into a layout, but just in case I don’t make the deadline for the challenge, I did the tut, its beautiful, and its a skill that looks MUCH more complex than you made it. Yay, you! LOL

Thank you, thank you for this tutorial. I bought two different reflection “actions” and they aren’t as good and or simple as your tutorial. I will gladly buy from your studio in thanks. And, of course, enter the contest.

For the ‘create a group’ command in the layer palette that Melissa uses, which PSE does not have, there are a couple of options:
1. Select all of the group layers that you want included in the group reflection in the layers palette and link them. Leaving all of the selected, drag them to the ‘new layer’ icon at the top of the layers palette to make copies of them. Use the command CTRL+E to merge all of the copied linked layers to a single layer you can flip and rotate and otherwise turn into a reflection.
2. Hide everything on the LO that you do not want included in the group reflection by clicking on the eye icon. Make sure one of the layers that is still visible is selected in the layers palette, then use the keyboard command SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+E. Everything that is visible will be merged and placed onto new layer for you, leaving all layers intact visible or not.

The method I would choose from the two above would depend on how many layers needed to be merged together.

Trackbacks

[...] This week's tutorial is all about creating a reflection. There's a challenge in there for you too. Reflections Happy creating! Sponsored by Studio Gypsy @ Scrapbookgraphics. MissBehaving: Tutorial Challenge [...]

[...] Note1: Kait added a gradient to the wordart to change its color. Note2: The boat reflection was done following a fantastic tutorial by uber-talented Melissa, a/k/a Miss Behaving, found on the SBG Blog [...]

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